Monday, February 22, 2010

As you all know, there has been a small brouhaha in my state of South Carolina regarding a teen dating violence bill.

In May of last year, a bill was introduced in the SC Legislature that that required schools to create teen dating violence prevention policies. Rep. Joan Brady sponsored the bill. Another rep, Greg Delleney created an amendment requiring the bill to pertain to only heterosexual relationships.

Delleney said that he was afraid that the bill without the amendment would "force" schools to teach about same-sex relationships.

Because of this ridiculous amendment, a large group of gay and lesbian South Carolinians and their allies raised hell and held a press conference at the State House, leading to the bill being tabled.
However, the bill is not only back but recently came up for in discussion in the Senate Education Committee last week. The education sub-committee voted 3-2 to keep the discriminatory anti-gay language in the bill.

This coming Wednesday, the Teen Dating Violence Bill is one of six bills which will be discussed by the full committee (17 senators total).

And the situation gets more interesting, so to speak.

According to SC Pride Movement President Tamera Tedder, a representative of the SC Pride Movement spoke with Sally Coffin in regards to this meeting. Coffin handles K-12 legislation for Senator John Courson, who is the Chair of the Senate Education Committee. The representative learned from Coffin that comments from the public will NOT be heard at this meeting. Comments are only taken when the sub-committee meets, which occurred last week.

In other words, no one will be allowed to voice their opinion about the bill.

However, according to Tedder:

"While we cannot speak at the meeting, we can still show our disapproval by showing up at the hearing. We would like to have as many people as possible there to oppose the discriminatory language that is being used in this bill. The hearing will take place at 10:00 am in room 105 of the Gressette Building on the capitol grounds. There are 90 seats in the hearing room. Standing is not allowed and seats will go quickly."

Wednesday is going to be an interesting day at the State Legislature. And though I am not going to be able to make it, I will keep you posted on what happens.

No matter how they try to disassociate themselves from him, no matter how they try to pretend that he has no influence on their claims about the gay community, some religious right groups seem to find it difficult to completely "quit" discredited researcher Paul Cameron.

Over a week ago, Cameron was interviewed on Midweek Politics Radio regarding a "new study" which he claimed proves that allowing gays to serve openly in the military is a bad idea.

According to Cameron, gays are four to seven more times likely to rape their fellow servicemen. He even says that some perpetrators of heterosexual sex assaults can be termed as gay because apparently some gay men "like women too."

Now due to Cameron's dubious history of bad studies, no one has paid attention to his "new study" and it hasn't been cited, at least not by name.

Has it been surreptitiously referred to by the Family Research Council?

This came from a recent fundraising email by FRC head Tony Perkins:

As a veteran of the Marine Corps, I believe the President's timing on this issue shows he is willing to jeopardize our nation's security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby. We can't let that happen.

Our military exists to fight and win wars, not engage in radical social engineering. Forcing soldiers to cohabit with people who view them as sexual objects would inevitably lead to increased sexual tension, sexual harassment, and even sexual assault.

And just so you know, it was FRC who made put that second paragraph in bold letters. So now the organization is outwardly saying that allowing gays to serve openly in the military will lead to sexual assault over a week after Cameron claimed that he has a study proving this.

Coincidence? Maybe.

But knowing FRC's past history of citing Cameron's discredited work or bad theories, maybe not.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.